View full sizeMarvin Fong, The Plain DealerJim Tressel has embraced the pressure associated with The Game.

Columbus -- When the Big Ten considered moving the Ohio State-Michigan game to October, starting next year with conference realignment, fans on both sides of the rivalry erupted in anger and disbelief.

The Game has to be at the end of the regular season, they argued in unison, loudly enough that the whole idea was soon dropped. The Game, the argument went, is the finishing touch on each season. It is not a work in progress.

Actually, it was also the forum for the rise of one of the biggest presences in the modern history of the rivalry.

James Patrick Tressel, Mentor-born, Berea-raised, a fan of all things Cleveland, has made his hometown a greater Ohio State stronghold than it ever was by beating Michigan eight times in nine tries. No one has ever been pulled from college football's minor leagues, placed in as big a pressure cooker as Ohio State, and so quickly repudiated the thought that it would be too big for him.

Tressel's predecessor, John Cooper, never believed the true stories about Woody Hayes' teams practicing for Michigan during Northwestern week or Indiana week or any week that wasn't Michigan week. Cooper tried to cope with the magnitude of The Game by downsizing it. He even dropped the paint-blistering pep talks of Earle Bruce, the coach who preceded him, out of the ridiculous fear that his players would become overwrought.

At stake in The Game is the good opinion of posterity. At high noon today in the Horseshoe, Ohio State's players and those from Michigan can determine how they will be remembered. But it goes for the coaches, too.

Cooper's record was so dismal (2-10-1) that his failures in The Game became more of a story than the successes of Gary Moeller and Lloyd Carr at Michigan. In Carr's case, in particular, it was an unfair take on the career of a good man. When Carr's Michigan teams beat Ohio State, it was because Cooper couldn't win the big one. When Carr started losing to Ohio State, it was because Tressel was a great big-game coach. You can't have it both ways.

Maybe Cooper never had to play such bad Michigan teams as Tressel does now, but, in that regard, you can't say enough about Rich Rodriguez, Carr's successor. He is a one-trick pony, running the spread offense before he had the personnel for it and chasing off talented players like quarterback Ryan Mallett (to Arkansas) and lineman Justin Boren (to, of all places, Ohio State). Rich Rod's team will go a bowl at last this year, albeit one low in significance and high in indifference.

After Cooper dodged The Game's pressures, Tressel embraced them. He came to OSU from a lower-tier program at Youngstown State, but he had the The Game hard-wired into his DNA as an Ohioan.

He promised the day he was hired that fans would be proud of his team in "310 days in Ann Arbor, Mich." Usually, Tressel is as cautious in his comments as his close-to-the-sweater vest coaching style. In this case, the Quiet Man spoke eloquently.

He brought Bruce back to get the players lathered up with his speeches, thinking he needed the biggest megaphone for the biggest game.

And 310 days later in 2001, using backup quarterback Craig Krenzel because Steve Bellisari was still doing penance for a DUI arrest, Tressel went to Ann Arbor and beat the Wolverines, 26-20, denying them a chance to win the Big Ten championship. Marquise Walker, an All-American wide receiver, dropped a touchdown pass on a play on which he was wide open.

"I have plenty of clever generals. Just give me a lucky one," said Napoleon.

But it wasn't all luck. Tressel outfoxed Michigan's defense, calling the only quarterback option Ohio State ran all season in 2002 to win The Game.

He hid Ted Ginn, his flyer, at tight end on a hurry-up, short-yardage play that turned into a long touchdown pass in the epic 2006 game.

He has run when he had the horses (Maurice Clarett, Beanie Wells), managed the game with his quarterback when he has had to (Krenzel), and turned the game over to his quarterback when he trusted him (Troy Smith.)

His teams have held on (2001), come back (2005), won when they weren't supposed to (2001, 2004) and when they were (throughout the Rich-Rod era).

In a league with the slogan "Big Stage, Big Life, Big Ten," no one else has ever owned the spotlight on its biggest stage so securely while being so low-key. No one else has come in so underestimated and raised expectations so abruptly. No one else in the modern era has dominated The Game so thoroughly.

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